Russia & CIS

The Taliban denied reports that representatives had met Russian officials to discuss the common threat from Islamic State in Afghanistan as a British newspaper reported that President Vladimir Putin had met the Taliban leader.

The head of the most powerful Syrian insurgent group in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus was killed on Friday in a Russian air strike on the secret headquarters of his group, rebel sources said.

Russia's air force has made 5,240 sorties since it started the strikes in Syria on Sept. 30, including 189 sorties on Thursday alone, Russia's defense ministry told reporters on Friday.

Russia plans to build at least six new nuclear power units in India in the next 20 years, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Russia's war plan worked better than envisioned. But it has yet to achieve the main goal: End Western sanctions.

The implementation of the ceasefire accords, aimed to resolve the Ukraine crisis and known as the Minsk 2 agreements, will drag into 2016.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the head of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party of treason on Thursday for using a trip to Moscow to condemn Ankara's shooting down of a Russian warplane over Syria.

Russia's interests coincide with the ones of the Afghan Taliban movement concerning fighting the Islamic State, Russia's Foreign Ministry department head Zamir Kabulov said Wednesday, the Interfax news agency reported.

A court in Moscow has softened its stance on Russian army ground forces ex-deputy chief Vladimir Chirkin, and changed his corruption sentence from 5 years in prison to a 90,000-ruble ($1,200) fine, Interfax reported.

The main result of the outgoing year is the fact that the Russian population is still optimistic no matter what. The main lesson of 2015: emotions are not good when making important decisions. If Russia is economically strong, she will not have to ask the West for anything - the West will come to give

How are you today? How was your weekend? What was your vacation like? Normalno.

Forecasts for 2016: Putin winds Obama around his finger. The international coalition wins complete victory over the Islamic State. The current wave of migrants to Europe comes to naught. Europe lifts sanctions against Russia, and Putin becomes No. 1 peacemaker on the planet. A directly opposite scenario is seen unfavorable for the United States

Joint Working Group on human rights issues, composed of representatives of civil society and authorities, will hold its next meeting on Dec.24, the group told APA.

The meeting is planned to be held in early 2016.

The recent meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Bern did not produce any significant effect.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation will further ease their economic exchange through a joint monetary accord, says Iranian Minister of Communication and IT Mahmoud Vaezi.

"There is no ground for concern."

Prime Minister Artur Rasizade has met a delegation, led by chairman of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Ismayil Kahraman.

A ceremony of signing Azerbaijani-Afghan documents was held on Dec.22 following the expanded meeting with participation of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.

Defense Ministry has disseminated an information.